Newly mobile, I had such high hopes for this trip to Bernard Park in the Wheatbelt metropolis of Northam. I walked the dog through the park the day before and saw plenty of bird activity. Everything was checked and packed carefully the night before and the car had a full tank of petrol. What could go wrong? I pulled up in the carpark just after dawn and the conditions were looking perfect. I could see and hear plenty of birds. Then I found out what could go wrong. Me! I just couldn’t do anything right. It was as if I’d never picked up a camera before. Forty years of photographic knowledge and experience had evaporated. A lot of the birds got so bored sitting around waiting for me to get my act together that they took off in search of a better photographer. I missed lots of sitters because I was just so slow in sorting out focus, exposure and composition. After an hour and a half of abject failure I threw in the towel and called it a day.
I’ve put the two best photos below and they are quite frankly very, very pedestrian.
Three Little Birds. Kanamit or Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxxena). Bernard Park, Northam, Western Australia.
A female Choonya or Long-necked turtle aka oblong turtle (Chelodina oblonga) having laid its eggs slowly makes its way back to the safety of the river. Bernard park, Northam, Western Australia.
The only upside to the day was that I saw two of the Long-necked Turtles. It’s egg laying season for them and they come up from the river – no mean feet as the bank is very high and steep at this point – and lay their eggs. They will have hatched out at this spot and every year they will lay their eggs there. Their offspring will do the same. Thirty years ago I used to see turtles quite regularly, but now they are very rare so to see 2 within five minutes of each other was something rather special. This time of year sees the turtles try to cross busy roads to get to their nesting sites, so if you live in these areas please be careful as you drive. A word to the wise. If you ever feel the need to help one not get run over by picking it up and moving it to a safe location a word of caution. Make sure that the rear end is pointing away from your body. Long-necked Turtles void as a defence mechanism – it is an incredibly foul smelling mess that is very difficult to wash off yourself and out of your clothes. Once smelt never forgotten.
The issues regarding my blog that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago have not resolved. I still can’t link images from my account at 500px to my pages here at WordPress. I had extensive communications with both companies and each is blaming the other and I’m the meat in the sandwich. I hope in another couple of weeks to find a permanent solution.
“Stay sill damn it!” Common garden snail, Cornu aspersum.
The recent orchid expeditionmade me get my macro lenses and flash out of the cupboard and consequently I’ve been playing around with it in the garden. I had this brilliant idea to improve my focus stacking technique by taking photos of snails. I mistakenly thought that they’d be a good subject as they don’t move much. I was very much mistaken. The little beggars move around quite a lot. The tentacles that their eyes are mounted on are in a constant state of motion and so my attempts at focus stacking failed. Not to be deterred I just stopped the lens down to f11 or f16 (well into diffraction territory on Micro Four Thirds) and just carried on taking picture of little critters in the garden.
Another fidgety snail.
The focus stack even failed on this. Dunno what I’m doing wrong.
Yikes! Don’t know what this was amongst the coriander.
Looks better in profile.
Oh dear! The Beloved Significant Other is not going to be happy with these aphids.
Things have taken a dire turn at Paul Amyes Photography. For some reason the links to the images are all of a sudden broken. I’m not sure what has happened, but it does mean that I’m having to go through all 616 pages and re-link the photos. It is a mammoth undertaking and will keep me occupied for some while.
I saw the accompanying image when we went to Beverley for the Spring Equinox Flower Festival. I couldn’t resist the red and the blue. It was taken with one of my everyday cameras. I did take some photos of the flower exhibits, but, they were a bit meh when compared to this one.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary to say someone is as “high as a kite” is to say they are either intoxicated or extremely happy. Currently I’m in the extremely happy category as we have been having regular visits from a juvenile Black-shouldered Kite. It spends mosts of its time perched on the TV aerial and can often be heard chattering away – sort of a cross between a chirp and a squawk. We had a bit of a mouse plague earlier and this bird is probably the result of that. Normally Black-shouldered kites breed only once a year in the period August to January, but when there is an abundance of food they will breed twice.
A juvenile Black Shouldered Kite, Boorh-ga in Nyoongar, perching on our TV areial. (Elanus axillaris). York, Western australia. Olympus EM1x with OM System 100-400mm lens.
The photos are the best I’ve managed to get so far, but the up the chuff view point (a bird photography technical term) is never a good look. I’ve seen it hunting over the open fields in front of us so hopefully I’ll manage to get some birds in flight shots soon.
The morning mist on the Avon River. Western Australia. Panasonic G9 with Panasonic Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4 lens.
I like the pass of the seasons. I like how everything changes and provides different experiences. I like going out down the Avon River on a cold winters morning with thick mist. The experience is very different – vision is limited to around 5-10m and sounds are strangely muted. When looking for wildlife you think that nothing is near and then suddenly it looms out of mist. Sometimes I wonder who is more surprised at the encounter, me or the animal.
A femaleAustralian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) and her twenty one ducklings swiming in the Avon River. Two weeks later I saw her and had just five remaining ducklings. Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with Panasonic Leica 100-400mm f4.5-6.3 lens.
Kakak or Little Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos). Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with PanaLeica 100-400mm lens.
A male Bambon or Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris). Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with PanaLeica 100-400mm lens.
A female Bambon or Rufous Whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris). Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with PanaLeica 100-400mm lens.
The sun making an effort to break through the mist creates a warm haze. Doornart or Ring-necked Parrot (Barnardius zonarius subspecies semitorquatus). Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with PanaLeica 100-400mm lens.
Doolor or Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) waiting for the sun to break through. Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii with PanaLeica 100-400mm lens.
Living in a farming community the topic of conversation often turns to the weather. Right now people are talking about how little rain there has been, how cold it is, how they’re looking forward to summer, and how they’re worried about the forthcoming mother of all El Niño’s is coming with forecast temperatures for the Wheatbelt being in the mid to high 40sºC. The local farmers I’ve spoken with are all saying that crop yields will be severely impacted. Generally El Niños don’t effect us in Western Australia like they do in the Eastern States so hopefully this summer won’t too much of a feat of endurance.
I must confess that since we got our new puppy – Bertie – I’ve been rather busy. Time just seems to have slipped away. So the other morning when I was reading the news on ABC I came across a story about how the orchid season in the Wheatbelt had kicked off early. It caught me completely unawares. Normally what I do is draw up a list of what I want to see with when and where and then see where there is an overlap so I can get the most bang for my buck. Then I get my orchid kit together and make sure that everything works and is ready to go. That hasn’t happened this year. A mad whirlwind of frenetic activity saw me pack my bag and find an old list that for some reason I didn’t enact. So quickly organised I headed out on my first orchid hunt of the season.
Eastern Curly-locks. Wandoo National Park, Western Australia. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus M.40-150mm F2.8 + MC-14 teleconverter.
The target species was the Eastern Curly Locks (Thelymitra maculata). I know of two places where they occur. One location, Wandoo National Park, is easy to get to and the plants are easily found near the road. That means orchid poachers often dig them up for selling illegally.The other spot I know (I won’t divulge its location) has more flowers, but,is harder to get to and involves a lot of walking and careful searching. Wandoo National Park was chosen as this was all a bit of a last minute decision.
Dwarf Pink Fairy Orchid, Caladenia reptans subspecies reptans. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus M.40-150mm F2.8 + MC-14 teleconverter.
Dwarf Pink Fairy Orchid. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lens.
Hare Orchid, Leporella fimbriata. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lens
Banded Greenhood, Pterostylis vittata. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus 30mm f/3.5 macro lens
From the description in the ABC article I was expecting to see quite a show as the areas has other species of orchid that should be in flower as well. As I walked through the bush I saw very little orchid activity. Out of the 8 species that should be flowering I saw 3 and there were only a few of those. At one point I wished I’d had my birding kit as I managed to flush several quail as I walked around. The irony being when I’ve gone birding there I didn’t see any. I zig zagged through the bush and didn’t find any Eastern Curly Locks. Dejected I settled for photographing some Dwarf Pink Fairy Orchids (Caladenia reptans subspecies reptans) and some Banded Greenhoods (Pterostylis vittata). I’d promised my partner I’d only be a couple of hours so I packed my kit away and headed back to the car. I took a slightly different route back as I didn’t want to go back through the tangle of sheaoak that had slowed me down while on the outward journey. I stopped to look at some carnivorous Red Ink Sundews (Drosera erythrorhiza) when out of the corner of my eye I spied 2 Eastern Curly Locks. So I had ticked the first orchid off of this years list.
Eastern Curly-locks aka Spotted Curly-locks, Thelymitra maculata. Olympus EM1 mk ii with Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lens
We had some very co-operative visitors this week in the form of 6 Carnaby’s Cockatoos. They arrived in the garden while I was out with young Bertie our puppy. Normally when I dash back to the house and get a camera the birds disappear before I get back. This little group were very relaxed and hung around for ages letting me get quite close to take their picture. When I went to process the photos I thought the black and white birds would benefit from a monochrome treatment.
Carnaby’s Black-cockatoo, (Zanda latirostris). York, Western Australia.
The world has become a very grim place at the moment now that the Mango Menace has unleashed “Operation Epic Fury” (really who comes up with these ridiculous names?) which means we have to take out a mortgage to buy a tank of petrol if we canfind a servo with any in stock. So we decided to launch “Operation Numbat” whose sole function was to produce joy.
Dryandra, Western Australia.
The goal was to spend a couple of nights at Dryandra and find a numbat. Easier said than done as we have been looking for around thirty years and never seen one. A numbat for the uninformed is smallish, about 30-40 cm long, marsupial that eats termites. It was once quite common across southern Australia, but was driven to the point of extinction when somebody thought that introducing foxes to Australia would be a good idea. There now exist only a few small isolated populations in Australia and Dryandra is one of them. The Western Australian state government introduced Operation Western Shield (another silly name) to protect vulnerable native fauna from feral foxes and cats. In Dryandra this is done with a combination of 1080 baiting and trapping. It’s reckoned that the programme has reduced the fox population by 80% (Marlow et al., 2015).
We weren’t there just for the numbats, we there for Woylies, Echidnas, birds and everything and anything wildlife related.
Day 1
Helen on the Wandoo walk at Dryandra, Western Australia.
We arrived at Dryandra at at lunch time and once we’d eaten we set off to walk the Wandoo Walk (day walk) the start of which is located at the Old Mill Dam. The walk is 2.7 Km long and takes about 1 1/2 hours – more if you are looking for animals like we were. It is touted as being good for wildlife with a chance of seeing Numbats. Now the great thing about Numbats is that unlike other small marsupials they are diurnal, and to cap it off like sunning themselves in open areas which in theory should make them easier to see. I say in theory as we have been looking for over thirty years without any luck and I was hoping that this trip would be fruitful. It was a really enjoyable walk and we saw loads of birds – in fact I’d never seen so many Rufous Treecreepers in one day. But, when it came to Numbats we saw neither hide nor hair.
Jacky Winter, Microeca fascinans. Dryandra, Western Australia.
Djini or Rufous Treecreeper (Climacteris rufa), Dryandra, Western Australia.
Just before sunset we decided to walk around the large open paddock adjacent to the Dryandra Lions Village where we were staying. Western Grey Kangaroos were grazing on the grass and then we saw something we’d never seen before. We’d spotted an Echidna wandering round looking for ants when it encountered another Echidna. Now Echidnas are incredibly solitary animals and are rarely seen in the company of others. The two animals sniffed each other carefully and then went on their separate ways continuing their search for ants. As I continued walking along the perimeter of the paddock I found another Echidna and it came quite close allowing me to get some nice close ups.
Dryandra Lions Village is comprised of old forestry bush cottages.
A pair of Nyingarn or Short Beaked Echidnas aka Spiny Anteaters (Tachyglossus aculeatus). Dryandra, Western Australia.
Nyingarn or Short Beaked Echidna.
Day 2
Kawana Trail information board. Dryandra, Western Australia.
The morning saw us out on the Kawana Walk which is a 3.3Km walk through the Brown Mallet plantation, through the kwongan heath and then back through the Mallet trees. The varied landscape gives great opportunity to spot different birds, Kangaroos, Echidnas and fingers crossed Numbats. Again, like yesterday’s walk, we saw loads of wildlife – birds, kangaroos, and skinks – but no Numbats. It was hard not to feel a little dispirited at this stage. You plan trips and hope to see certain animals, like we did in our recent trip to Broome, but when you don’t find them you can feel very deflated even though you saw other animals.
More Rufous Treecreepers
Miyamit or Yellow-plumed Honeyeater (Ptilotula ornatus).
Yongka or Western Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus).
Buchanan’s snake-eyed skink, Cryptoblepharus buchananii. Dryandra, Western Australia.
My companion in the Old Mill Dam hide – a Southern Slider (Lerista dorsalis). Dryandra, Western Australia.
After grabbing a quick drink I set off to walk down to the Old Mill Dam and sit in the hide there. Apart from seeing a Southern Slider Skink and a dragonfly I saw nothing. Desperation was really starting to set in now, so at 4pm we decided to go on a very slow drive around the park in the hoping that we’d see something. Driving along a deeply corrugated gravel road at 20Kph is enough to shake your fillings out of your teeth. It was torturous. At this stage your mind starts to play tricks on you. You so want to see that animal and you are desperately willing it to happen and every time a branch moves or a bird flies just above the ground you think NUMBAT! Your head twitches backwards and forwards trying to get a better glimpse of what wasn’t there. Suddenly at a junction just standing there as cool as you like was a Numbat just 20 metres away from the car. Gently stopping the car and winding the front passenger window down I managed to rattle off a few frames before it started moving. As it walked further round I could no longer shoot through the open window and I was having to use the front passenger quarter light window. At the time I knew this would seriously degrade the image quality, but I continued anyway in the hope that I might be able to salvage the images in post later. Then within 5 or 10 seconds it was off into the bush and we lost sight of it. We were both exhilarated – we had huge grins on our faces. We’d seen a Numbat! We had really seen a Numbat. Operation Numbat had been a huge success.
At long last! A Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus). Dryandra, Western Australia.
Numbat on the move. Shooting through the glass of a car window gives less than optimum image quality.
I love this pose, but the image quality is shot to hell.
Maybe it works better as a black and white.
It’s now a week since that sighting and the memory of it still brings a huge smile to my face and a feeling of excitement. One Numbat isn’t enough – I want to back and see and photograph more. Hopefully it won’t take another 30 years to do it.
The other day the Beloved Significant Other (BSO) came home from the local cemetery saying she’d seen lots of crows there with some even sitting on the grave stones. She suggested we go the next morning and try and get some suitably gothic photos.
Australian crows (Corvus coronoides) are not in fact crows, but are in fact ravens. They are highly intelligent birds using tools to help feed themselves, they’ve also been observed softening dried out hard food in water to make it soft enough to eat. As I said, very clever. For the local Nyoongar people the raven is called Waardong – the watcher – and is seen as crafty, cunning and very unpredictable. That is where our plan failed. There was no way we going to get close enough to get a photo. I approached using cover and while just trying to peek around the corner of a wall they’d immediately see me and all take off. I didn’t manage to get one single photo of a raven.
Try as I might this Wardawort or Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus) just didn’t look gothic enough. York Cemetrey, Western Australia.
There were other birds at the cemetery and I thought that one of them – Wardawort or the Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus) – would make a suitable replacement for a raven. The Grey butcherbirds were far more approachable than the ravens and it was possible to get quite close which was great for taking photos. The problem was that they didn’t want to sit on top of the grave stones but rather they perched on the wrought iron work that surrounded some of the graves. I still took some pictures but they didn’t match what I’d envisioned – reality seldom does. Getting home I tried processing the the photos as black and white trying to give a suitably dark menacing tone. It just didn’t work. The Grey Butcherbirds didn’t have that spooky/menacing appearance that the ravens have. I also thought that the colour photos looked better, but they did not convey that gothic vibe I was trying to create.
The colour versions just looked better albeit just not spooky enough.
It was a fun exercise. We did talk about how we might get the ravens to hang around. The most logical way would be to put down food for them on a regular basis and so change their behaviour. The ethics of that are a bit suss – get animals habituated to humans and dependent on hand outs just for a photo. Bit dodgy that one. We feed and water birds in our garden, but this is different. It is not our garden and the ravens are naturally wary of people. The birds in our garden are already habituated to us. We didn’t have to put out any food to encourage that. The only other way is to just keep going back over and over again. Who knows we may chance upon a raven that isn’t too fussed about people who is sitting on top of a grave stone and using it as an anvil so they open up snail shells. Preferably on a misty morning. I rather think that pigs might fly first.
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